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IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS (MARCH 13, 2018): The 10th annual report on the death penalty in Iran by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and ECPM shows that in 2017 at least 517 people were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This number is comparable with the execution figures in 2016 and confirms the relative reduction in the use of the death penalty compared to the period between 2010 and 2015.
Nevertheless, with an average of more than one execution every day and more than one execution per one million inhabitants in 2017, Iran remained the country with the highest number of executions per capita. 2017 Annual Report at a Glance: At least 517 people were executed in 2017, an average of more than one execution per day111 executions (21%) were announced by official sources.Approximately 79% of all executions included in the 2017 report, i.e. 406 executions, were not announced by the authorities.At least 240 people (46% of all executions) were executed for murder charges - 98 more than in 2016.At le…

Iran: Execution and Extorsion

Iranian authorities have reportedly asked for money in exchange for the bodies of 2 executed prisoners.

In May 2014, 2 brothers, Abdol Jamal Zehi, 26, and Hamid Jamal Zehi, 22, were reportedly hanged to death in Chabahar Prison in southern Iran on drug trafficking charges. Iranian authorities reportedly refused to hand over the bodies of these 2 young men until their family paid 11 million Tomans (approximately $4,000).

An informed source, who wishes to remain anonymous, told HRANA that the bereaved mother of these 2 brothers was finally able to recover the bodies after raising 5 million Tomans ( approximately $1,600). "She had to raise the money by pleading with family members also going into debt," says the source.

Iranian authorities carried out the executions in secret and no official news agency in Iran reported on it.

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A man convicted of murder in a San Antonio robbery more than 9 years ago was executed Tuesday evening after proclaiming his innocence.

Reginald Blanton, 28, received lethal injection for the April 2000 shooting death of Carlos Garza at the 22-year-old man's apartment.

In a brief statement after he was strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney, Blanton insisted his execution was an injustice and he was wrongly convicted.

"Carlos was my friend," he said, looking at Garza's mother, wife and 3 sisters, who watched through a window a few feet from him. "I didn't murder him. What's happening right now is an injustice. This doesn't solve anything. This will not bring back Carlos."

Blanton also complained the lethal drugs that would be used on him weren't allowed to put down dogs.

"I say I am worse off than a dog," he said. "They want to kill me for all this. I am not the man that did this."

SUGAR LAND, Texas (KTRK) -- The Sugar Land man, who was within an hour of execution when the call came for clemency, is now off death row.
Bart Whitaker has been moved to an inmate processing facility in Huntsville, a day after his death sentence was commuted.
Gov. Greg Abbott commuted the death sentence of the 38-year-old Thursday after considering the pleas of Whitaker's father, Kent, who insisted he would have been victimized again should his only remaining immediate family member be executed.
Patricia and Kevin Whitaker were killed in the ambush orchestrated by Bart Whitaker on Dec. 10, 2003. Kent Whitaker was also shot but survived. It was a failed attempt by Bart Whitaker, prosecutors say, to secure an expected inheritance of more than $1 million if his entire family had been killed.
"It's a new day", said Kent Whitaker on Friday.
He hasn't yet been allowed to speak with his son yet.
"He's been given basically a new life, and I hope that he will f…

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Among the suspects on the list of the country’s 10 worst mass shootings, Nikolas Cruz is alone in one thing: He was taken alive.
His arrest raises the rare prospect of a death penalty trial for a massacre, a huge undertaking with far-reaching consequences for all involved. Some would not be satisfied without an execution, while for others the trial itself would bring anguish.
The chief prosecutor here in Broward County has said that the killing of 17 people at a high school on Valentine’s Day “certainly is the type of case the death penalty was designed for.” A trial may be the only opportunity to lay bare all of the facts. But it would also likely be televised and followed by lengthy appeals, provoking years of public agony, as well as sustained attention for Mr. Cruz, who has already confessed.
Over years of mass shootings, from a university campus in Huntsville, Ala., to a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., prosecutors have struggled with this conundrum, testi…

Alva Campbell — the convicted murderer and Ohio death row inmate who entered the death chamber in November but left 20 minutes later after a suitable vein for injection could not be found — has died, according to a report from this organization’s partners at WBNS 10TV.
The Columbus Dispatch reported that he died of natural causes.
Campbell, 69, had multiple health problems, including issues with his veins. He had asthma, emphysema and required an external colostomy bag, according to court filings and parole board testimony.
The state agreed to use a wedge pillow to help him partially sit up on the execution gurney because of his breathing problems. PREVIOUS COVERAGE: New death date set for man after state halted his execution
Campbell was sentenced to death for fatally shooting Charles Dials, 18, in 1997 after stealing his truck during an escape from custody. He was set to be put to death on a rescheduled date of June 15, 2019.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich issued the reprieve for Campbell a…

The following document is a written record of convicted killer Hamida Djandoubi's last moments before he was guillotined in a Marseilles prison on September 10, 1977.

This record -- dated September 9 -- was written by a judge appointed to witness the execution.

Djandoubi's execution was the last execution carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981.

Then-President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had voiced his "loathing for the death penalty" before he was elected to office, flatly turned down Djandoubi's appeal for clemency and chose to let "Justice run its course", as he did on two previous instances (Christian Ranucci, executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein, executed on June 23, 1977).

Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet.

FLORIDA -- The state executed a man for the 1993 rape and murder of a Florida college student Thursday.

Authorities say 47-year-old Eric Scott Branch was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. Thursday after a lethal injection at Florida State Prison.
Eric Scott Branch, 46, was found guilty for the 1993 rape and murder of Susan Morris in Pensacola.
Authorities said Branch attacked Susan Morris in January of 1993 as she walked to her car at the University of West Florida.
Branch dragged Morris into a nearby wooded area, where he beat, strangled, and sexually battered her.
Branch then left Morris' body in a shallow grave and stole her car to flee the state.
Branch was previously convicted for the 1991 sexual battery and beating of a 14-year-old girl in Indiana.
He was also convicted in Bay County, Florida for another sexual battery.
His execution was put on hold at 6 p.m., pending final appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The court rejected the appeals without comment.

The Alabama Supreme Court has set execution dates for 2 inmates, 1 for the man convicted in the 1989 pipe bombing that killed a federal appeals judge in Mountain Brook, and the other from an inmate who asked the court to expedite his own death.
The court set April 19 for Walter Lee Moody's execution for the death of U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert S. Vance. Justices also set March 15 for the execution of Michael Wayne Eggers, the Alabama Attorney General's Office confirmed Friday.
Eggers was convicted of 2 counts of capital murder in connection with the Dec. 30, 2000 murder of Bennie Francis Murray, of Talladega, during the course of a kidnapping and robbery.
While the Alabama Attorney General's Office asked for an execution date for Moody, Eggers had submitted on Jan. 10, 2016 a hand-written motion to the Alabama Supreme Court asking that his execution be "expedited."
In 2016 a federal judge, after listening to mental health experts, declared th…

SINGAPORE - Convicted drug trafficker Billy Agbozo was executed last Friday (March 9) after he failed in his clemency plea.
Agbozo, 39, a Ghanaian national, had been found guilty and sentenced to death on July 4, 2016, for trafficking 1.63kg of methamphetamine here in his luggage in April 2013.
The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of methamphetamine trafficked is more than 250g.
Agbozo was "accorded full due process under the law, and was represented by legal counsel throughout the process", said the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).
CNB added that 1.63kg of methamphetamine is sufficient to feed the addiction of about 1,210 abusers for a week.
Agbozo had travelled by plane from Accra to Dubai on April 4, 2013, before boarding a plane bound for Singapore. He arrived here the next day and planned to spend five nights here.
But he was stopped by checkpoint inspectors who screened his luggage - a black haversack and a red-and-black suitcase.
White,…

The state of Alabama executed Michael Wayne Eggers-- an inmate who asked to die-- on Thursday night at Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. His time of death was 7:29 p.m.
This is the first execution the state has carried out this year.
Just before 6 p.m., the set execution time, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a stay of execution and announced they would not review the case. Their decision came after Eggers' former attorney filed petitions for a stay and for a writ of certiorari on Monday.
Eggers, 50, was convicted of capital murder in 2002 for the death of 67-year-old Bennie Francis Murray. In 2016, the inmate said he wished to expedite his execution date and fired his attorneys from the Federal Public Defender's Office in Montgomery.
Eggers' execution started at 6:54 p.m., when the curtain to the three viewing rooms opened. The warden first read Eggers his death warrant, and then asked if he had any last words. Eggers replied, "No ma'am."
At 6:56 p.m., E…

President Trump has been privately praising Singapore, the small city-state once known as the world’s most active executioner per capita.
This is according to Axios, which reported Sunday that the president has been telling friends for months that the death penalty should be imposed on drug dealers in the United States — similar to a policy enforced for decades by Singapore. Trump repeated those sentiments during a surprise appearance at an opioid summit Thursday, but the president did not explicitly say that he wants capital punishment for drug dealers.
“If you shoot one person, they give you life, they give you the death penalty. These people can kill 2,000, 3,000 people and nothing happens to them ... Some countries have a very, very tough penalty, the ultimate penalty,” Trump said, without naming any specific country. “And, by the way, they have much less of a drug problem than we do. So we’re going to have to be very strong on penalties.”
Axios reported that Trump has told confi…

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.